McDermid’s fiendishly clever eighth novel featuring forensic psychologist Tony Hill and detective Carol Jordan (after The Retribution) finds the two partners on the outs. Tony is persuaded to help track a European killer who drowns and mutilates psychologists, while Carol is working undercover to trap a drug trafficker whose dead lover spookily resembles her.

The real legacy of the horrors of the Second World War is… the one at the heart of this book: the way in which the experience of wartime suffering is bequeathed by the victims to the next generation.As Carol worms her way into Tadzio’s confidence, Tony is building up a portrait of Geronimo from the evidence the police have painstakingly amassed. With consummate skill and pacing, she braids together the complex story lines through surprising revelations, heartstopping suspense and cruel double-crosses. The Last Temptation ( 2002) is a crime novel by Scottish author Val McDermid, the third in her acclaimed Dr. Set in Manchester, England, which its natives claim as the home of rock 'n' roll, the forthright and unpretentious sleuth introduced in this fast-paced story is sure to win readers' hearts.

Then suddenly, on page 338, both Carol and Tony begin to act accountably reckless, setting the stage for a melodramatic third act that undercuts the considerable ambitions McDermid ( Killing the Shadows, 2001, etc.for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.

A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. British PI Kate Brannigan persuades her lover, Richard, to help out in an investigation of auto-financing fraud. And his former partner, DCI Carol Jordan, is herself in Germany, working undercover in a world where human life is cheaper than a drugs deal. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. It's December 1963 and teenage girls all over Britain are swooning to the Beatles' ""I Want to Hold Your Hand.She's the best we've got' New York Times A twisted killer targeting psychologists has left a grisly trail across Europe. Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. The couple's past experiences have created a bond between them as well as a certain inability to bear the sight of each other.

There is no one in contemporary crime fiction who has managed to combine the visceral and the humane as well as Val McDermid . Meanwhile, his former partner, DCI Carol Jordan, is working undercover in Berlin, on a dangerous operation to trap a millionaire traffiker. This intriguing second novel by the author of Report for Murder again casts lesbian Scottish journalist Lindsay Gordon.Jordan goes undercover in Germany as part of a dangerous operation to capture Tadeusz Radecki, an international smuggler of drugs and illegal aliens. Confronting the worst of contemporary crime and struggling to unravel roots that lie deep in the tormented past of Nazi atrocities and Stasi abuses, Tony and Carol are forced to battle for survival against overwhelming odds. Val McDermid is one of the few crime authors who can be convincing when it comes to 'writing tough' yet retain a powerful emotional insight.